Russians Arrest 2 Men in Killing Of U.S. Editor

Published: September 29, 2004

The police announced the arrest of two men on Tuesday in connection with the killing of a prominent American journalist. But officials provided few details about the men or their motive, and Russia's chief prosecutor later suggested the arrests had been disclosed prematurely.

The journalist, Paul Klebnikov, the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes, was shot four times as he left the magazine's office in Moscow on July 9 in what the authorities described as a contract killing, the latest in a series of attacks against journalists in Russia.

Lt. Gen. Vladimir V. Pronin, chief of the Moscow police, told the Interfax news agency that investigators had arrested two men early Tuesday morning and seized three pistols, including one believed to have been used to shoot Mr. Klebnikov.

General Pronin said the men, whom he did not identify except to say they were Chechens, had been involved in a kidnapping, although one apparently unrelated to Mr. Klebnikov's killing. A police spokeswoman confirmed the arrests but declined to elaborate.

By Tuesday evening, the general prosecutor's office, which had assigned its top investigators to the case, suggested that with his announcement, General Pronin exceeded his authority and possibly compromised the investigation.

The arrests, if substantiated, would represent an unusual breakthrough for investigators, because attacks like the one against Mr. Klebnikov have rarely been solved. The conflicting reports, however, only left the case murkier. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 11 journalists have been murdered in contract killings in Russia since 2000, but no one has been convicted in any of the cases.

Leonid Bershidsky, the publisher of Forbes here, called the announcement ''a hopeful sign'' but added that neither he nor anyone else at the magazine had received new details on the progress of the investigation.

Mr. Klebnikov's brother, Michael, reacted with caution to the latest turn in the investigation, saying very little had yet been established and expressing concern that the authorities were not simply seeking scapegoats. ''We want to make sure that two people have not just been hauled off the streets,'' he said in a telephone interview from New York, where he lives.